2020 may look at battlefields sans troops
Jerusalem, December 30
Israel defence industries, pioneers in many ways, are working on a futuristic battlefield scenario where armies use remote-operated robotic weapons on land, air and sea without a trace of any human soldier anywhere on the battleground.

20% less Indians to enrol in Oz, $70m loss in revenue
Melbourne, December 30
Enrolment of Indian students in Australia is expected to slide by a whopping 21 per cent over safety worries in the aftermath of violent attacks on them and the country could lose around 70 million USD in revenue.

Couples cope better with shocks: Research
Toronto, December 30
Confirming that marital status plays a significant role in our life, Canadian scientists have said couples cope with financial crunch and illness better than individuals.

A torchlight procession and celebrants wearing Viking costume light up Edinburgh’s main street, the Royal Mile, to mark the beginning of Hogmanay, five days of concerts and events to celebrate the Scottish New Year. —
AP/PTI

Mother Teresa on new US stampWashington, December 30India's Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa will be honoured on a US postage stamp on her birth centenary, the US Postal Service said today. The postage stamp honouring Mother Teresa is scheduled to go on sale on August 26, 2010, on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Ramadi (Iraq), December 30
Twin suicide bombs killed at least 30 and wounded more than 100 in Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland on Wednesday and a roadside bomb killed seven pilgrims returning from a major Shi'ite Muslim religious festival.

The attacks underscored the tenaciousness of Iraq's ongoing insurgency despite a steep drop in overall violence and reflected Iraq's vulnerability as it prepares for national polls in March and local troops take over from U.S. forces.

US forces flew Qassim Mohammed, governor of Anbar province west of the Iraqi capital, to Baghdad for treatment after he was wounded in the attacks outside the provincial government headquarters in Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital. Hospital and police sources said Sadoon Khraibit, a member of Anbar's governing council, and its deputy police chief were wounded in the attacks, which left charred cars, their chassis buckled from the explosion, and bloody wreckage on the street. A separate, roadside bomb killed seven Iraqi pilgrims who were returning from a major Shi'ite Muslim religious festival, police said. At least 25 other pilgrims were wounded in the attack in Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad.

The first attack in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, appeared to target the governor's convoy as he made his way to work.

Police Colonel Jabbar Ajaj said a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a vehicle in the initial blast, followed shortly by a second suicide attack by a bomber on foot.

Mohammed was at the site of the blast inspecting the damage, a source at the Ramadi hospital reported, when the second attacker struck. State television Iraqiya said one of the bombers was a man working as a bodyguard for the governor. — Reuters

Jerusalem, December 30
Israel defence industries, pioneers in many ways, are working on a futuristic battlefield scenario where armies use remote-operated robotic weapons on land, air and sea without a trace of any human soldier anywhere on the battleground.

This concept once a part of science fiction could soon become a reality with self-detonating grenades, thinking bullets and robot warriors making humans on the battle front line a thing of the past, daily Ha'aretz reported.

The first robotic systems are already being used by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and other armies across the world and only budgetary constraints seem to keeping this away from becoming a reality, the report said. But now, such a weaponry system could be in place in 2020s, the paper said.

A helicopter that spots suspicious movement on the ground will, for instance, would be able to relay a command to a drone to photograph the site and transmit the picture in real time to troops on the ground and to the command posts in the rear.

Soldiers manning the specialised warfare computers will then be able to mark their target by its coordinates and launch missiles with the help of lasers from dozens of kilometres away to be guided by GPS, ensuring accuracy and destruction of the target. The systems will be coded to prevent enemy interception of the operation.

Other possible developments in the not so distant future could see spy satellites, that today weigh several tonnes, shrinking down to anything between 1 kg and 100 kg or less, with engines the size of postage stamps.

Infantry rifles will also be computerised and fire "smart" rounds telling them when and where to explode. New rockets being thought of would also be 'able to think by themselves' to enhance their accuracy.

The new systems being developed for the Israeli military are focusing on miniaturisation and accuracy. Though secrecy shrouds the new weapon systems development, but reports said these include remote-controlled battleships, unmanned land vehicles and fighters and missiles and bombs which drop on targets with pinpoint accuracy.

"The Protector, which we are already marketing, is a vessel that sails all over in all kinds of places without a living soul on board," Roni Postman, vice-president for R&D at Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, told the daily.

"It can close up to a terrorists' boat, address it through a loudspeaker, and open fire at it. In the past, a thing like this required a boat with seven or eight crewmen who were in constant danger," Postman said.

This type of remote control is one of the clearest characteristics of the future battlefield. It will be a battlefield devoid of troops, with vehicles doing what soldiers have done until now," he added. — PTI

Melbourne, December 30
Enrolment of Indian students in Australia is expected to slide by a whopping 21 per cent over safety worries in the aftermath of violent attacks on them and the country could lose around 70 million USD in revenue.

In its latest projection, Tourism Australia has said the recent spate of attacks on students will result in 4,000 fewer Indians coming to Australia to study next year.

"The downturn is expected in response to concerns that the Indian community has had about safety," Head of Tourism Australia's forecasting committee Bernard Salt said.

As the slide in inflow of Indian students comes about, Australia could lose over USD 70 million in revenue, the study said.

"What we are saying is that based on consideration of visa applications, there is 20 per cent hit in the number of Indian students coming in 2010," Salt said, adding that it was hard to say whether this drop could be a "knee-jerk, one-year reaction".

Gautam Gupta, President of the Federation of Indian Students in Australia, however, said the slump would not be as severe as feared earlier after a spate of attacks on students of Indian origin up to June this year.

"Our fears were that the slide could touch as high as 50 per cent. But it is going to be only 21 per cent," he said.

Australia's education industry has in recent years witnessed an unprecedented boom with the value touching as high as USD 15.4 billion a year and is listed as the country's third biggest export earner. —
PTI

Toronto, December 30
Confirming that marital status plays a significant role in our life, Canadian scientists have said couples cope with financial crunch and illness better than individuals.

According to a study by University of British Columbia, spouses help in dealing with health, financial and other shocks. After examining data from the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, researchers Giovanni Gallipoli and Laura Turner found that in marriages "main-earners" (husbands) tend to transfer income and compensate "second-earners" (wives) while they in turn, provide conditional time and care in time of need.

"The insurance the second-earner provides to the main-earner in the marital contract serves as an important mechanism to help smooth out household income in time of health and disability shocks to the main-earner, as a way to support the future earning potential of the husbands," they said. The authors found the relative value of marriage changes in different ways for men and women as they age. Men who receive shocks early in life may lose the insurance offered by marriage by being sorted out of possible matches in the early stages, the study said, adding marriages become more stable with the passing of time. — PTI

Washington, December 30
India's Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa will be honoured on a US postage stamp on her birth centenary, the US Postal Service said today. The postage stamp honouring Mother Teresa is scheduled to go on sale on August 26, 2010, on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

"Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who devoted her life to the sick and poor of India, was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. A stamp in her honour will go on sale on her birthday August 26," the postal service said in a statement.

Every year, the US Postal Service releases a series of commemorative stamps, honoring people, places and institutions. The Albanian catholic nun, who devoted her life to the downtrodden, was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Other personalities to be honoured on US postage stamps in 2010 include Katharine Hepburn, winner of four Oscars, singing Cowboy and later baseball executive Gene Autry, artist Winslow Homer, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and the Year of the Tiger, which will be released on January 14. — PTI